Duplicate Payments or Payments to incorrect suppliers

The request was partially successful.

Dear Portsmouth City Council,

Following the disclosure of overpayments made recently at West Sussex County Council, please can you confirm the volume and value of overpayments or duplicate payments of invoices made by Portsmouth City Council to the correct or incorrect supplier in the previous financial year - (16/17)

Could you also confirm what processes you have in place to identify these errors in the future so that payments are not made incorrectly.

Your response would be welcome.

Yours faithfully,

John Smith

FOI, Portsmouth City Council

1 Attachment

 
 

FOI Customer, Community and Democratic Services
Civic Offices, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, PO1 2AL
Telephone:      023 9268 8482
                               

                                               
 
Reference: FOI/2017/562
 
Dear Mr Smith
 
 
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 - INFORMATION REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
 
Thank you for your request for information received on 22 April 2017.
 
Your request is being considered and, subject to the points made below,
you will receive the information requested as promptly as possible within
the statutory timescale of 20 working days as defined by the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.
 
If we need to obtain more information from you in order to understand what
information you require, we will contact you. If this is the case, the 20
days time limit will not commence until your request has been clarified.
 
The Act defines a number of exemptions that may prevent release of certain
information.  The City Council will consider whether any of these
exemptions apply and, where required by the Act, whether it is in the
public interest to release the information.  If we have to make a public
interest test, the 20 day time limit might be extended. We will inform you
if the time scale has to be extended and if any information is withheld
and of your rights of appeal.
 
The City Council would like to make you aware that disclosure of
information obtained through FOIA is a disclosure into the public domain.
 
The City Council’s standard approach is to provide the information in the
form in which we hold it.  If you require alternative formats, e.g. audio,
large print, etc. or a different language, please let me know and we will
provide it if reasonably practicable to do so. If your request is a
question and we do not hold the answer in recorded form we will try and
provide an answer where we are able unless it requires the creation of new
information.
 
There may be a fee payable for this information request and we will send
you a Fees Notice if this is the case. Any fee must be paid before the
request is provided.  The time between the issue of the Fees Notice and
receipt of payment is excluded from the calculation of the 20 working day
time limit.
 
Any personal information you provide in relation to this request will only
be used for the purposes of processing your request for information.
 
If you have any queries or concerns then please contact the Corporate
Information Governance Officer at Portsmouth City Council, Civic Offices,
Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO1 2AL, telephone 023 9268 8482,
e-mail [1][email address].
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
 
 
Rachel-Marie Wilson
Corporate Complaints and FOI Officer
                                                                       
 
 
 
 

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Dear FOI,

Please can you respond to my FOI request which I believe has now reached the 20 days for response.

Yours sincerely,

John Smith

FOI, Portsmouth City Council

Dear Mr Smith

Thank you for your email. I can confirm that the relevant Department has forwarded to us their response. We have however, gone back to them for further clarification.

I have just chased this Department to respond to us asap. As soon as we receive their response, we will of course come back to you. Please accept our apologies in the meantime for the delay.

With best wishes
Wendy Burton
FOI Officer

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FOI, Portsmouth City Council

1 Attachment

Information Governance, Community & Communications Service
Civic Offices, Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, PO1 2AL
Telephone:    023 9268 8482
 
 
Our Ref: FOI2017/562
 
Dear Mr Smith
                                   
INFORMATION REQUEST – FOI2017/562 - Overpayments
 
Thank you for your request for information received on 22nd April 2017,
which was considered under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please
accept our apologies for the delay in providing you with our response.
 
 
YOUR REQUEST:
 
Following the disclosure of overpayments made recently at West Sussex
County Council, please can you confirm the volume and value of
overpayments or duplicate payments of invoices made by Portsmouth City
Council to the correct or incorrect supplier in the previous financial
year - (16/17)

Could you also confirm what processes you have in place to identify these
errors in the future so that payments are not made incorrectly.
 
 
OUR RESPONSE:
 
It is not possible to calculate the value of duplicate payments for the
financial year 2016/17 electronically and to locate, retrieve and extract
the information to respond to this part of your request would require the
manual interrogation of many thousands of records. Normal budget
monitoring procedures should have identified any duplicate payments,
however, any issues will have been investigated and resolved by individual
teams and there is no central record of the number or value of potential
duplicate payments.
 
We are able to confirm therefore that, whilst Portsmouth City Council does
hold the information requested, we have estimated the cost to locate,
retrieve and extract it will exceed the appropriate limit given in Section
12 of the Freedom of Information Act (£450.00 or 18 hours of officer
time). Consequently the Council is not obliged to comply with your request
and, in accordance with Section 17 of the Act, this letter acts as a
refusal notice to this part of your request.
We apologise that your request will not be met but we invite you to
contact us should you wish to discuss how it may be refined to a more
manageable level.
As an authority, we have recognised that this is an important issue and we
now carry out regular checks centrally to identify and resolve any
potential duplicate payments. We currently run central checks on a weekly
basis, where all payment records for the previous three months are
extracted and reviewed for duplicates. Data is sorted by e.g. supplier,
value, invoice number, to identify potential duplicates. These are
investigated and where a duplicate payment is identified, arrangements for
a refund will be made, either via a credit note, or by direct repayment
through our sales ledger. Budget managers will review their areas of
responsibility and will also make arrangements for repayment if they
identify a duplicate. We have not centrally logged duplicate payments
identified, so cannot answer the question, however we believe the
incidence of duplication is relatively low.
 
Under the Re- Use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 (SI
2015/1415) the supplied information may not be re-used without obtaining
the permission of Portsmouth City Council.
 
You have the right to appeal against this outcome or to complain about our
treatment of your request.  If you wish to do so, please set out in
writing your grounds of complaint and send to the Corporate Information
Governance Officer at Portsmouth City Council, Civic Offices, Guildhall
Square, Portsmouth, Hampshire, PO1 2AL, telephone 023 9268 8482, e-mail
[1][email address].
Should you be dissatisfied with the outcome of the complaints decision you
may wish to follow the Portsmouth City Council’s Compliments and
Complaints procedure which can be found on the Portsmouth City Council
website or by contacting the Civic Offices.
 
Once these processes have been exhausted you have a further right of
appeal to the Information Commissioner at:
 
Further information is also available from the Information Commissioner
at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
[2]https://ico.org.uk
 
Yours sincerely
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Helen Magri
Corporate Information Governance Officer
 
Portsmouth City Council
Civic Offices
Guildhall Square
Portsmouth
PO1 2BQ
 
T:  023 9268 8482
E:  [3][email address]
E:  [4][Portsmouth City Council request email]
[5]www.portsmouth.gov.uk
 
 
 
 

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